Patents

Alright, everyone knows the drill by now. This week’s post was inspired by the article “The pill that costs $9,000 in US sells for $70 in India” from The Times of India.

I chose this article because it reminded me of a documentary I watched for my Social Informatics class. The documentary, Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware, discusses manufacturing growth that turned the city Shenzhen, China into one of the most well-known cities regarding invention and innovation of hardware. While the topics of the documentary and the article are wildly different, the morals discussed in both hit very similar points. I’m referring specifically to the subject of patents.

Watching the documentary on Shenzhen opened a doorway for me in exploring the ethical aspects as to what extent patents should be permitted. An example the documentary gave was Apple’s desire to patent the rectangular shape of a smartphone (2016). It made me wonder whether patents should have limits. I think I found the answer—for me, at least— starting with The Times of India article.

The news article explains that India has laws concerning what items can be patented. If a medication is patented, there is a law that prevents the company from reinventing the drug in an attempt to have the patent extended. Therefore, once the patent expires, generic drugs can be sold as well at a more affordable price (2016, p.2). Here in the U.S. we have no such laws restricting patents on medication. This causes me to question the morality of even patenting medicine at all.

My natural inclination is to argue that medication—particularly those that are life-saving—shouldn’t be patented, or if they are patented, should have laws that don’t permit patent extensions. I found a journal article called “DEVELOPING DRUGS FOR THE DEVELOPING WORLD: AN ECONOMIC, LEGAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL DILEMMA” by David B. Resnik. The article states, “In the United States (US), prices of prescription drugs have risen at a rate far greater than the inflation rate: the average cost of filling a drug prescription rose from $34 in1990 to $61.33 in 1999. Pharmaceutical sales in the US rose from $59 billion in 1990 to $91.8 billion in 1999” (2001, p.3). The fact the prices rose “greater than the inflation rate” bothers me because that means the companies consumed more money for the medication than is necessary, therefore denying these medicines to those who can’t afford the drugs they need.

However, the Resnik article points out later that, “While many people regard the drug companies as villains, the plain truth is that a great deal of research would simply not be done without money from this industry” (2001, p.4). So there is a counterpoint in the sense that pharmaceutical companies need money to perform research and further discover how to make medication. It’s a fair point, but it also makes me question if that’s actually what most of the money is being spent on. The article also mentioned quite a bit of money is spent towards marketing, which doesn’t seem as necessary as actually researching, making, and distributing drugs that people need (2001, p.4).

The last article I found that I want to reference is called “Intellectual Property and the Pharmaceutical Industry: A Moral Crossroads Between Health and Property” by Nevin M. Gewertz and Rivka Amado. The article highlights moral arguments between John Rawls and Robert Nozick. Rawls argues that “a person’s right to health is a basic liberty and therefore of greater moral import than an individual’s right to intellectual property” while Nozick believes “an individual has a fundamental right to intellectual property and the state should protect” those rights (2004, p. 296). Essentially, Rawls believes the right for everyone to live a life of quality is more important than only one individual benefiting from a product for financial gain and Nozick believes that, due to the time and research an individual puts forth to create an item of quality—such as a drug—that they have the right to be compensated for those efforts. To an extent, both make good points. I think what troubles me is, while I do believe someone should receive compensation for their time and effort, I also believe it shouldn’t come at the expense of another human being’s quality of life. However, I also know that a solution to the problem can’t be magically fixed overnight.

References

Amado, R. & Gewertz, N.M. (2004). Intellectual Property and the Pharmaceutical Industry: A Moral Crossroads Between Health and Property. J Bus Ethics 55: 295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-004-0993-z

Resnik, D.B. (2001). Developing Drugs for the Developing World: An Economic, Legal, Moral, and Political Dilemma. Developing World Bioethics, 1: 11-32. doi:10.1111/1471-8847.00004

(2016). The pill that costs $9,000 in US sells for $70 in India. The Times of India. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Natalie/Downloads/3%20The%20pill%20that%20costs%20$9,000%20in%20US%20sells%20for%20$70%20in%20India%20-%20Times%20of%20India%20(2).pdf

(2016). Shenzhen: The silicon valley of hardware [streaming video]. WIRED. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY